There's No Inspection Like...

You've heard it a thousand times before. "You've got to inspect what you expect". "Follow up, follow up, follow up!", and other phrases designed to remind you of the vital step in achieving goals of measuring achieved progress vs. desired expectations. Nowhere does this hold more true than in one's educational pursuits.

I recently had to come to grips with the fact that my knowledge and associated performance in one of my classes was significantly less than what I desired and dramatically less than what would be useful in the workplace. Since there was no avoiding this, I reached out to my MBA advisor for some much needed guidance. Without dragging you through the gory details, suffice to say I received the assistance I needed in a professional and timely manner. This simple step and process could save people and companies countless chunks of time, money and other valuable resources. Honest assessments of how you are doing at all times is a must. It profits neither the individual nor the organization to project a status of achievement as a balm to mask the pain of underachievement. Why expend the energy in fooling yourself into thinking everything is OK when you could invest that same time and energy correcting the wrongs and building a better tomorrow?

Honest assessments allow progress to begin. Learn to be glad you're a cat...
LL

Where do you get your news?

With such a dizzying barrage of media available to us today, what are your most preferred sources of current business news? Here's a quickie list of sites I've fallen in love with:


Reuters

The Wall Street Journal

Yahoo Finance

Google Business News

What's an Online MBA Worth

The following article is reprinted in its entirety with all due consideration given to author Maggie Overfelt and website www.bnet.com. Food for thought.

You’ve seen the ads in pop-up windows and in the borders around your e-mail inbox: “Earn an MBA online for $7,000, no GMAT required!” If you’ve ever been tempted to apply for an online MBA or hire someone who had one, come-ons like these are enough to squelch the urge on the spot.

But then there are stories like that of Jim LeMere, 39, an insurance-company executive who earned an online MBA from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. The institution (No. 15 in Business Week’s B-school rankings) held him to the same admission and grading standards as its full-time MBA candidates, taught him with the same curriculum and same teachers, yet allowed him to attend class on his schedule. Oh, and he got to keep his job. “I traveled a lot, was relocated to Atlanta, and was eventually moved back to Indiana. Kelley moved with me the entire time,” LeMere says. When he graduated in 2004, a rival firm poached him, promoted him to vice president, and doubled his salary.

In addition to the Kelley School, Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business (No. 19 on Business Week’s ranking) now offers an online MBA, and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business (No. 8) offers a hybrid course that combines online and classroom learning. The online MBA neighborhood is gentrifying even at the mass-market end, dominated by for-profit B-schools like University of Phoenix and Kaplan University. In January, Jack Welch lends his name and prestige to the new Jack Welch Management Institute, a $21,600 MBA track that doesn’t require test scores for admission or on-campus attendance.

In short, the lingering image of online business schools as diploma mills is oversimplified, to say the least. True, no virtual MBA can make a recruiter’s heart race the way a Harvard or Wharton sheepskin can, but that’s an exceedingly high hurdle. The real point is this: In the right circumstances, an online MBA can indeed boost your career (and hiring someone bearing one can indeed help your company). It’s all a matter of matching your skills with the right program at the right stage of your career.

Study Tips 4 U!

For my fellow MBA students and collegians of other majors as well, here's a few study tips offered by the 
National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering
Website: NACME


I'll share the bullet points in this post then expound in later editions


1. Study the most important principles and processes first.
2. Focus on what you have not yet mastered.
3. Periodically re-study important material you have already mastered.
4. Do homework within two day after it is assigned.
5. Get help if you can't solve a new problem after one hour.
6. Join a study group to keep up with homework.
7. Check your academic progress every week.
8. Use the concept of "time on task" to study efficiently.


Again, in depth explanation will follow shortly.

Online MBA? Good Idea!

An Online MBA Could Work Around Your Work Schedule

Working professionals who want to pursue an MBA but feel as though they don't have the time may want to consider enrolling in an online MBA program.

For Nils Moe, pursuing an online MBA helped give him the knowledge to properly serve Berkeley, California, mayor Tom Bates as a sustainability advisor, according to the San Francisco Business Journal.

Moe told the news source that he has been able to use the lessons he learned through his online program to help him adapt to his current job requirements.

"I sit on a number of boards where we sit with financial managers," Moe said. "I definitely feel more grounded in sort of the world of finance. I can speak their language."

Moe went on to describe how an online MBA made it possible for him to start serving Bates two months before his graduation date.

One of the benefits of enrolling in an online MBA program is it provides you with the flexibility to maintain your work commitments and home life. Many people turn to online programs because they enjoy the option of learning in their spare time.

For more see:
http://www.mymbacareer.com/mba-news/8137-an-online-mba-could-work-around-your-work-schedule.html

Billionaire Strategies?

Self-styled lifeifestyle and wealth strategist, Christopher Howard is a best-selling author, prominent speaker and the owner of Christopher Howard Training. Using his basis in NLP, Chris claims to have researched the success strategies of some of the world's greatest business, philanthropic and spiritual minds. From his work, I have pulled out the following nuggets of guidance to lead you to business success. A mixture of financial approaches and shifts in mental attitude, you can call it zen capitalism for the 21st century.

1. Take personal responsibility and embrace an empowering mindset about money
2. Set clear goals and make them as big as your dreams
3. Create a realistic plan and take action
4. Learn to turn obstacles into opportunities
5. Be willing to do whatever it takes and have persistent wealth propulsion focus
6. Assume your wealth and build your business on purpose and passion
7. Gain the financial skills and vocabulary to manage your wealth. You can try the 10% tithe, 60% income for expenses, 10% for education, 10% fun, 10% save and invest financial strategy as a guideline.
8. Find business mentors and surround yourself with people who are achieving greatness. Build your mastermind group with people you can interact with personally and your "mental" mastermind group with the masters in wealth building who you study intensely enough to re-imprint your brain regarding finances.
9. Keep educating yourself and turn your weaknesses into strengths.

So what do the necessary skills sets of these uber-successful look like? Business and personal success coach Brian Tracy defines them as so:

• Effective Leadership
• Masterful in Sales
• Strategic Thinking
• Effective Marketing
• Productive Networking
• Efficient Time Management
• Masterful in Negotiation

For more details see:

http://www.chrishoward.com/Public/Home/index.cfm

and

http://www.briantracy.com/

"What Change Was That? said the Wall St suit...

What's that you say? You're eagerly awaiting wide-sweeping reform and increased regulation to make sure the Fannie Mae's and AIG's of the world don't commit the sins of the past in our near future? Well, join the crowd of investors, government watchdogs, and plain ol' taxpayers such as myself who wonder in earnest when the change we voted for will kick in. Gregory Zuckerman of the WSJ says don't hold your breath. While the big, systemic issues have been debated and identified, few measures have been put in place to protect our financial future.

The positives are that banks and Wall Street firms have slashed heavy debt down to about half of 2007 levels which is considerably more manageable and without inordinate risk. Also, needlessly complicated financial instruments like "synthetic CDOs" are getting much less attention as firms focus on more sensible products. At the SEC, information exchange is being scrutinized for legality in the conversations between traders, bankers, and other players. Gold-Sachs execs being paid bonuses in uncashable stocks (5 yr holding period) seems a good idea on the surface but the problem is much deeper.

(...to be continued)
PT 2:
Not so positive is the lingering suspicion that once the government money is paid back, Wall Street will be back to business as usual.  The hyper-skeptical not-so-quietly mused if we have not been partakers of an elaborate drama, the conclusion of which strangely mirroring the introduction.  Wall Street firms still pay more than half their revenue out as compensation.  Hedge funds like Paulson&Co. are INCREASING leverage rather than lowering their debt levels and there is precariously little chatter about big firm breakup of the JP Morgans and Goldman Sachs of the world.  The lessons of too big to fall clearly have fallen on deaf ears amongst the too big.

Maybe you can answer this one: Are credit default swaps being traded on public exchanges yet, thereby enhancing visibility and needed scrutiny? Have any rules been change to increase the amount of capital our banks must hold as a percentage of assets?  No, and no again.  When we asked for change, perhaps we should have specified non-cyclical...